blu_by_u

Well, I got a speeding ticket the other day. I drive a 7000lb Dodge diesel (sorry that its not a Mustang), the trooper said that I got up to 78mph while passing a car that I had been following @ 40-45mph. Can a stock mustang even do that (let alone my truck)? I'm just trying to get data for when I go to the judge.

TIA

rum

Well, if he clocked you doing that speed, you really don't stand a chance.

Your only chance at fighting the ticket is if the cop doesn't show up.

Legion5

well a mustang takes about 8 seconds to get from 45 to 78 mph.

The average following distance is 40 ft on the highway for cars and 60 ft for trucks.

a car length is 20 ft so we factor that in for the claim of "while passing".

so you'd have to be able to travel 80 ft going on average 16.5 mph in 8 seconds.

If you traveled over or even close to 80 feet by the time you accelerated to 78 in a Mustang then there is no way a diesel truck could accelerate to 78 by the time it passed a car, it would be further ahead when it reached 78.

Answer: A Mustang GT would be 193.6 ft ahead of it's original position compared to a car going 45 mph by the time it reached 78 mph at full throttle.

This means that your 7000 lb truck would have no chance in the world to meet the criteria of what you said.

Based on average truck acceleration it would need to gain a minimum of 400 ft on the vehicle it was following to reach 78 mph this is an incredibly improbable distance to be considered following anything.

Jersey Stang

blu_by_u

Thanks, that's exactly the kind of information that I was looking for.

I very well could have been going over 55mph while I was passing, but 78 seems to be a little high for my truck. I'm also going to explain that I was passing on a 2 lane highway and that like a good/alert driver I pay attention to the road (since I'm in the lane of on-coming traffic!) and not my dash so that I can get back in the correct lane as soon as possible.

Jersey - You have a valid point about daily calibrations, but with my luck, he probably did calibrate it that morning. I am going to stop at the house where he was sitting in their driveway to ask if they had given permission to clock traffic. They had 2 fast looking bikes parked by their garage so there's a decent chance that they weren't the ones complaining about speeding traffic. That's another point that I'm going to make....it's not like I wanted to stay at that speed, I just wanted to get around the people that were going 10-15mph under the speed limit.....isn't that what the passing zones are for?

Thanks for all of your help. I'll report back as to how it turns out.

Legion5

A 6700lb diesel Dodge Ram 3500 based on acceleration statistics from a popular mechanics review and drag strip timeslips online fits the bill perfectly for a 400 ft stint from 45 to 78 mph.

No I'm not sure why anyone has raced a 7000lb truck either:

http://www.dragtimes.com/Dodge--Ram-...ag-Racing.html

However in your story where you're actually passing it on a 2 lane highway and accelerating as fast as you can and are distracted, it's possible however unlikely that you were 100 ft behind the car when you started and far enough infront when you were trapped especially if it was down hill. It's up to you to compare the results.

The correct distance for your particular truck to have gained is 390.996 ft on level road, again you may have no realized this happening.

blu_by_u

Any last words of advice from anyone? I go to court Tuesday and am pretty nervous. I think that I'm going to mainly try to show that I'm not normally a fast driver and that my main concern (as ironic as it may sound) was safety. Basically watching for on-coming traffic while I'm passing and then double checking that I'm not cutting the other driver as I get back into my lane, then slow back down.

What do you think?